Castrul Mălăiești
Location: Sfârleanca village, Dumbrăvești commune, Prahova county.
Mălăiești fort is located in the southern extremity of a terrace located at the confluence of the rivers Teleajen and Vărbilău, at the point “La Cetate”. The site is today within the administrative radius of Sfârleanca village, Dumbrăvești commune, Prahova county. In academia, it entered under the name of Mălăiești, after the name of the commune to which it belonged until the administrative-territorial reorganization of 1968. Archaeological research in the Roman fort from Mălăiești began in the late 30s, during which army topographer, colonel Constantin Zagoriţ, made a detailed topographic plan of the entire area, including, among others, the Roman fortification, and the baths. The civilian settlement was reported on C Zagoriț’s map on the plateau located north of the fort, by a hashing correlated with the sign “agglomerations of ruins”.
The first systematic archaeological research was carried out in 1954 by Grigore Florescu and Expectatus Bujor. Since the ’60s, the camp and the Roman settlement have been subjected to a long process of degradation due to agricultural activities, and in 1976 the baths of the fort were cut by a ditch for the introduction of a main water supply pipe. After the works for planting an orchard in 1985, rescue excavations were carried out by Dan Lichiardopol. Recent archaeological researches were carried out between 2011-2019, the baths were completely excavated, and in the fort, the fortification system and two barracks from praetentura were excavated.
Archaeological research, correlated with geophysical ones, revealed the structure and configuration of the defensive system, as well as significant data about the internal organization. Judging by the dimensions of the fort (180×160 m), the large number of barracks and their dimensions and structure, the fortification could have stationed a vexillation of between 600 and 800 soldiers. The name of the unit remains unknown. The baths are located on the lower terrace, next to the plateau on which the fort was built. Their archaeological research was carried out exhaustively between 2012-2015.
The results of recent archaeological research are under print in a monograph, some of the results were published in thematic articles, as can be followed in the bibliography indicated below.
Part of the study:
Ovidiu Țentea, Vlad Călina, Peisajul arheologic al castrului Mălăiești, Cercetări Arheologice, Vol. 26, pag. 169-196, 2019, doi: https://doi.org/10.46535/ca.26.06
Bibliography
Zagoriț, C. 1940. Castrul roman de la Mălăeşti şi cetatea dacă de la V. Humei din judeţul Prahova. Ploiești: Progresul Grafic: 17-22; Florescu, G. and Bujor, E. 1955. Săpăturile arheologice de la Mălăieşti. Studii şi Cercetări Istorie Veche 6: 271–279; Țentea, O. and Matei-Popescu, F. 2015. Why there? The preliminaries of constructing the Roman Frontier in South-East Dacia. Acta Musei Napocensis 52/1: 109-130; Țentea, O., Popa, A. and Cîmpeanu A. 2018. Mălăiești. A trajanic fort in Muntenia – the results of recent magnetometric surveys, Acta Musei Napocensis 55, I: 227–240; Țentea, O. 2018. Baths and bathing in Dacia under Trajan, in: C.S. Sommer, and S. Matešić (eds) LIMES XXIII: Proceedings of the 23rd Congress on Roman Frontier Studies Ingolstadt 2015: 134-138. Mainz: Nünnerich-Asmus Verlag; Angheluță, L., Țentea, O., Ghervase, L., Cortea, I., Dinu, M., Ratoiu, L. and Pârâu, A. 2022. Integrated multi-analytical study of the bronze vessel from Mălăiești Roman fort. Journal of Ancient History and Archaeology 9.1: 185-198, DOI: 10.14795/j.v9i1.743 ; Mustață, S. and Țentea, O. 2022. The Roman metal vessels from Mălăiești Roman fort. In: V. Bârcă, S. Mustață, V.-A. Lăzărescu, V. Rusu-Bolindeț, D. Matei (eds.), Faber. Studies in Honour of Sorin Cociș at his 65th Anniversary, Cluj-Napoca 2022.